Any areas of the US that will LOSE OTA reception as a result of DTV?

[EricStein]

Still, sometimes there are dead areas. I'm barely 5 miles east of the antenna farm in Phoenix and have a clear line of sight with no trees, buildings, or other objects to cause interference. In spite of that, I usually cannot receive KFPH-CA at my house, yet when I go 25 miles north of the mountain, there it is, clear as a bell. My house definitely within the coverage area, but I'm not covered. But that's not a function of the signal not being strong enough; it's some other interference. I could even be (*gasp*) a transmission at variance with its stated parameters, although less likely here than in a rural area.

It doesn't help for KFPH-CA being sandwiched in between two full-powered DTV's, as well as being trampled on by KGUN-DT on the same frequency. There have been nights and mornings that KGUN-DT could be received with the antenna pointed toward South Mountain - and this was on the northwest side of the Phoenix metro!

Fortunately for KFPH-CA, the two digital stations, one of which is a sister station (as well as KGUN-DT), are moving their digital signals to their analog allocations. They have been telling viewers in promos to buy a DTV converter with analog pass-through to continue receiving KFPH-CA, even though it can be received on KTVW-DT2.

 

[vibe]

I've ead reports of long distance reception of stations in AZ and VA of approx 100 miles. But terrain is an issue. When I livedin Rutland MA in the 1980's our outside antenna brought in an amazing number of watchable OTA stations, At least 35 stations many of them city grade, all atchable. 2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,18,19,20,21,22,24,25,26,27,30,31,36,38,40,41,44,46,50,51,56 57,60 (I think) ,61,64,66,68. There were a few others but not very clear like 58 and 69 from the Cape and Block Is. And that was before a number of UHF's have signed on. But I know people on the wrong side of town (only with repect to TV reception, that only received 8-9 stations OTA total with an antenna. I lived for awhile on that end of town and got only 4-5 watchable stations albeit with rabbit ears.

So I'm very skeptical of these generic, circular maps when there was such a wide disparity in the same town, the only variable being a large hill.
Even in the town I live (in So Worc cty) I get a considerable number of stations on rabbit ears and a loop vs very few stations on a low lying end of town. I had lent my son the same TV/antenna for a few days when he just moved in to an apartment and was awaiting cable. The reception there was simply terrible particularly on UHF.
This is a great topic as there are a lot of areas still to be discussed in this thread.

 

[KML0224]

2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,18,19,20,21,22,24,25,26,27,30,31,36,38,40,41,44,46,50,51,56 57,60 (I think) ,61,64,66,68.

Damn! You did that good? I'm jealous Vibe! Let's see if I have your list right:

2- Boston
3- Hartford
4- Boston
5- Boston
6- New Bedford
7- Boston
8- New Haven (or Poland Spring, ME...depending on how long ago this was?)
9- Manchester, NH
10- Providence
11- Durham, NH
12- Providence
18- Hartford
19- Adams, MA
20- Waterbury
21- Concord, NH
22- Springfield
24- Hartford
25- Boston
26- New London
27- Worcester
30- New Britain ("Hard Hittin'"!)
31- White River Junction, VT
36- Providence
38- Boston
40- Springfield
41- Windsor, VT
44- Boston
46- Norwell, MA
50- Derry, NH
51- Portland, ME (or Pittsfield, MA?)
56- Cambridge
57- Springfield
60- Merrimack, NH
61- Hartford
64- Providence
66- Marlborough, MA
68- Boston

 

[vibe]

KML: there were 2 ch 8's New Haven (watchable0 and Ch 8 mt. washington (really fuzzy but clear sound)-but I had clear reception on the ABC affilitate in the Prov area, Boston, Mt. Greylock, and Springfield, all at/near city grade) Also 2 ch 26's ( New London clear and Biddeford ME fuzzy), there were a few others: For some reason Ch 13 Portland did not come in but my next door neighbor got it on his rotor. We got Ch 2 NYC very late at night except when it was raining,snowing etc which hampered reception just a bit. We also had a small hill to the NW that allowed Ch 19 North Adams to come in but precluded reception of the other Albany Stations. But we got ch 51 in Pittsfield snowy, watchable, but good sound) But who needed it?
How do you prove this to all you Dx ers out there. You can do this for 8 more months or so but it gets damn cold/windy on that exposed hilltop in late fall/winter:
In Rutland Center, go to the town hall and ball field, the reception is crazy good. One can use a HH TV or a small portable (soon to be extinct) B and W Tv that runs off the cig lighter or batteries. You can get weaker stations like 31 (Hanover NH) and 41 (Windsor VT) really well. You also get a ton of suff most of which I mentioned. But there's a small hill toward Hartford that didn't affect us at home that might affect reception to the SW just sligtlly. I used to watch theHH TV while my boyz were doing warmups for their LL games and enjoyed watching the 6:30 PM news. Of course the weather had to be overcast to watch that small screen well. These were all day to day stations, no tropo. People who lived in this area had even bETTER reception than me! I believe the elevation is about 1200 ft ASL but it's about 6 mi away from the famous Paxton transmitter site foolishly vacated by AAF. If someone broadcast up there on FM....
The biggest mistake was getting cable. if I only new..

 

[dhett]

Still, sometimes there are dead areas. I'm barely 5 miles east of the antenna farm in Phoenix and have a clear line of sight with no trees, buildings, or other objects to cause interference. In spite of that, I usually cannot receive KFPH-CA at my house, yet when I go 25 miles north of the mountain, there it is, clear as a bell. My house definitely within the coverage area, but I'm not covered. But that's not a function of the signal not being strong enough; it's some other interference. I could even be (*gasp*) a transmission at variance with its stated parameters, although less likely here than in a rural area.

It doesn't help for KFPH-CA being sandwiched in between two full-powered DTV's, as well as being trampled on by KGUN-DT on the same frequency. There have been nights and mornings that KGUN-DT could be received with the antenna pointed toward South Mountain - and this was on the northwest side of the Phoenix metro!

Fortunately for KFPH-CA, the two digital stations, one of which is a sister station (as well as KGUN-DT), are moving their digital signals to their analog allocations. They have been telling viewers in promos to buy a DTV converter with analog pass-through to continue receiving KFPH-CA, even though it can be received on KTVW-DT2.

True - sometimes I can get KGUN-DT here, and KFPH-CA might be getting the same interference that caused KAZT-CA to seek to go digital-only after adjacent-channel KUTP-DT fired up their 1 MW signal.

Ironically, KFPH-CA won't need ch 35 either after analog LPTV shuts down, as they're DT2 on the Univision channel and I don't see Univision going HD. They didn't apply for a LPDTV companion channel, nor have they applied for flash cut permission yet, although I'm not certain they would. I'll be curious to see what Univision does with the channel after the transition.

 

[kc0ltv]

Grand Marais, MN is currently served by translators of Duluth market stations. These translators will shut off at the time of the DTV transition (not by law, but according to the plan of the stations). Grand Marais is about 105 miles from the Duluth DTV transmitters, so there's very little chance anybody will see them without their own 200 or 300' antenna tower. There's also WBKP in Calumet, MI, which comes in over the lake on channel 5, but I have doubts as to whether their VHF DTV station on channel 11 will make the 140-mile path (their antenna is located a distance from the analog's antenna).

Doesn't Grand Marais get OTA analog service from at least two stations in Canada?

(though I wouldn't be surprised if they don't bother to convert either Canadian station to digital, and both end up off the air in 2012...)

As far as I know, generally speaking, no. Grand Marais is a good 75+ miles from the Thunder Bay stations. I actually once asked a DX'er from the Grand Marais area this, and he told me that he could not receive the stations, though farther up the road (or was it higher up the hill?) they could be seen. This is 3 years ago, so he might have been talking about FM, though I'm pretty sure it was TV. That area is very hilly, so there are probably topographic issues as well.

On a related, I was looking through old VUDs on wtfda.org and happened to see something from 1996 or so about them shutting down the Grand Marais translators. Apparently it didn't happen...yet.

 

[ngriffin]

I visited Grand Marais in 1996 before and after a canoeing trip in the BWCA. Reception on on TV was only the translators from the state park campground. I don't think WBKP had signed on yet. I saw nothing from the Thunder Bay stations on TV and very weak on FM. Farther up on the Gunflint trail, a number of Canadian FM's were receiveable, but I didn't have a chance to check TV.

 

[JeeperOne]

Along the lines of the "Are We Shooting Ourselves in the DTV Foot" thread, do any of you know of any parts of the country (or even parts of certain DMAs) that will completely LOSE OTA reception of DTV signals after the 2/17/2009 transition?

In the short term, probably, and mainly in the fringe areas of physically-large markets (such as Phoenix, Denver, or SLC) and/or areas with hilly/mountainous-terrain. In the long term, if there's a demand, then additional translators will appear to cover those areas.

And even then, many people in these small mountain towns undoubtedly get their TV via cable or satellite anyway, which means they will be unaffected.

According to a PBS special on HDTV that I saw the other night, THE ONLY people that will be affected by the switch are people with TVs that are not controlled via remote control or cable ready. They are the only ones who will need to either A). Get a converter box or B). Subscribe to a cable or satellite service (Which will provide them with a converter box anyway).

Just my $.02 worth....

Cheers

 

[Tom Wells]

I will glady pay to ave garbage hauled away from my home, but I don't know if I can ever
justify paying for garbage delivery. The free OTA garbage will be enough for me.

This may just be what some people need to break free of TV's insidious grip.

 

[kenglish]

The problem with the Converter Box campaign, as I see it, is that we are fooling people in to a false sense of security.

If you only get your TV thru an antenna, then YES...you WILL need to take action to prevent the loss of your local stations (full-power ones only, right now). But, we also give the impression that nothing needs to be done if you have satellite or Cable.

Truth is, if you have Cable from a major MSO, you will likely have NOTHING BUT your local stations' primary channels next year. This is assuming you do not upgrade to Digital Cable service, and rent their converters. Many systems plan to be "All Digital" by 2009. They have to keep the locals' primary channels in analog for 3 additional years, or have the option to go completely Digital if they give you one converter box per account. Locals would have to be unencrypted.
This means you might not get anything but an "analog equivalent" signal, and only on your local primary channels, without upgrading (spelled with a "$$$").

Satellite still does not carry every local analog station. They require new dishes and new receivers (as well as new wiring in many cases) to get locals in HDTV....and, that's usually only four stations, ABC, CBS, NBC, and FOX.

So, if you "just get Cable" or "just keep your dish", you really "Don't get to participate in the Digital TV Transition".

Also, another concern is with people who receive TV over MATV systems, like in apartments, condos, nursing homes, schools and dormitories, prisons, etc. We have no idea how many of those exist, or whether they will be ready in time. Most of the ones I know of plan to just downconvert the main channels to analog, and pass them thru. Another case of viewers "Not participating in the Digital Transition"!

 

[DJKraze]

I have an Aunt who lives in one of those types of buildings, and the place was built in the late 60's to early 70's and the antenna system looked like it hasn't really been altered since it went in (I'm assuming at the time the building was constructed). For those who know the area, downtown New Britain, CT. She recently bought two of the magnavox converters from Walmart and had me install them. One was installed in the living room on a TV that has Cable on it and a MATV connection right next to it on the wall, plus one with a set of rabbit ears for the TV in the bedroom. I tested the MATV system directly to the TV at first and only saw a security feed from the lobby on one of the VHF channels, but didn't check the entire band, I assumed from that alone that most of the locals would not be strong or were being fed to other channels. To my surprise, even though typical NTSC reception seemed very lacking, when the ATSC box was in place, there must be a pass-through of some kind or maybe the system has enough signal leakage inbound as she was able to get the following:

WFSB
WUVN
WTXX
(I assume WEDH upon sign-on)
WVIT
WGGB
WTIC
so technically a total of 13 DTV stations on 6 channels excluding WEDH.

The rabbit ears were also a bit of a surprise as I expected the building to actually block a good amount of the signals, but the only difference between the two was the lack of WGGB.

She is setup in the living room with the ATSC box hooked into one of the VCR inputs and can switch from using the ATSC box to watching standard Cable via the VCR or using the TV's own tuner with switching to TV mode on the VCR remote. Pretty much the best of all worlds at this point (except for the lack of standard OTA NTSC reception, but not everyone is a tech geek like those of us who frequent this board).

I attempted to do the same thing at my sister's place, about a mile apart from my Aunt, but a much different situation. The security in the apartment complex (16 apartments) is somewhat lacking as the door to the downstairs basement has been broken into many times over the years because there's a laundry room down there and some where in the passage of time, some aspiring cable pirate (I guess) cut out some of the cables used for the MATV system, which appears to just be a set of antennas on the roof which has a splitter that feeds a pair of old Jerrold distribution amps, one for feeds to each row of apartments. The original cable from the antenna has been cut as well as the cable running from the amp on the south side of the building. I saw no point in attempting to replace any of it as it's not my property and I'm quite sure the building super would be clueless and not want to bother in any case as most of the residents are cabled. There's no reception from the MATV terminals on the wall in her apartment, she hasn't purchased a set of rabbit ears yet and only had one of those older FM dipoles that I had to use a transformer change the 300 ohm to 75 ohm (not that it makes much difference with how little she can get there). Unlike at my Aunt's place, her building does block signals and without a good antenna, she's not getting much (I keep telling her what to do, but she's too busy to bother). She lives about 2 miles from Rattlesnake Mt. and prior to installing a GE box from BJ's (not the model with the smart antenna) for analog she got:

WFSB
WTNH (very poor)
WUVN
WEDH
WVIT
WTIC

all in poor quality regardless of the proximty. Now because the lack of options to allow continued reception of NTSC (this could be done via her VCR, but again, no antenna yet) she can get the following but blocky at times:

WFSB
WUVN
WTXX
(I assume WEDH upon sign-on)
WVIT
WTIC


My point behind posting this is two fold: first as a note to myself as to what I still need to do over my sister's place whenever she decides to go out and get some rabbit ears, and also to let some know what kind of barriers some might face when trying to help relatives (as I'm sure many of us might have to deal with, as family members tend to beg the family techie to fix problems).

 

[KML0224]

I'm from New Britain and know you were close to the library and the YMCA. At least you got something from Springfield (MA). I get nothing from there at my current place, analog or digital. We're all within 5 miles of Rattlesnake Mountain in Farmington, CT. It's home to CW (digital), PBS (analog with digital by August), NBC (analog and digital), FOX (analog and digital) and WRCH-FM 100.5 New Britain/Hartford. I get ABC and MY from New Haven without much problem on analog and digital. PBS comes in somewhat from Norwich for digital but that will change soon. New London only has an ION station and isn't worth picking up. I'd be more interested in Springfield, since it's out-of-market.

 

[Markxxx]

I picked up a converter at Walmart when I was out of town, and boy was I shocked at the lack of OTA TV with the converter. I am in Chicago

In analog TV my two strongest stations are

WCIU channel 26
WWME-CA low power channel 23 (yes it comes in better than the full power)


Then
WGN (CW)
WLS(ABC)
WFLD (FOX)
WYCC(PBS)

The only channel I can't get is WTTW (PBS -11) which you can hear but can't watch ever since digital TV channel 11 signed on in Lafayette.

Anyway I plugged in my converter

I get THREE channels. WGN and WLS and WFLD.

They are all on UHF for digital, so I was shocked that that is all I could pull in. I only have rabbit ears so I didn't expect wonders but still only three channels that's bad.

I will have to get cable I guess, (no master antenna in my building and we can't get a dish as I live in a garden flat and there's no where to put it). I wouldn't mind if I could get ME-TV channel 23 on WCIU digital subchannel so this sucks.

The picture in digital breaks up too even though the signal does read at 100% on the converter. I tried two sets of rabbit ears, I don't know if it's the converter or just the poor antenna.

You'd think since all the digital TV stations are on Sears Tower I'd be able to get them all or none of them wouldn't you?

It'll be interesting in the inner cities come February as a lot of us people don't have cable or a dish.

I guess it's back to analog and I'll worry about this come Febraury

 

[tripinva]

Mark:

Rabbit ears are not a UHF antenna, they're a VHF antenna. Try an actual UHF antenna like a loop or a Silver Sensor or something before you get too carried away. And try physically moving the antenna, not just changing the aim.

- Trip

 

[fybush]

I was in the Chicago area last week, staying in a hotel in Oak Brook, 20 miles or so west of the Loop. With a Silver Sensor antenna deep inside the hotel room and a Magnavox DVD recorder with ATSC tuner, I had no trouble seeing any of the Sears/Hancock DTVs with the exception of WBBM-DT. (I tried WBBM-DT with rabbit ears, too, but still no decode.) I was also able to receive WYIN-DT with the Silver Sensor and careful aiming. I did not get any of the low-power DTs, but I didn't expect to. Lots to see in Chicago...wish I had MeTV and MeToo back home!

 

[Markxxx]

Well I have the loop in the rabbit ears, but the thing that really floored me is that Channel 26 and low powers WWME-CA (Me-TV) and METV TOO (low power channel 48) come in extremely clear. They come in on my analog set as well as WLS-TV does on the digital converter.

So that's intersting that the I can get decent reception with the Rabbit ears in analog and only three with the digital. So the digital form of broadcasting must be a lot more fussy. I am only like 10 - 15 minutes northwest of Sears Tower, so it'll be interesting come Febraury, cause no one in this building without cable will be getting TV.

It's probably cause of the tall building in Chicago, they don't allow the same pass in digital that you get in analog. I assumed if you could get nice clear signals in analog you'd get something in digital. As it is even the three channels I get are full of break up and stalls, which means the signal strength of those stations is poor.

This is what I hate about America, they can't make a digital signal for TV worth crap but those damn cell phones work in the middle of the subway going 60mph 25 feet underground

As people on this board know I HATE Comcast, I dumped cable and was so happy to do so. Now I have to go crawling back...LOL

 

[Markxxx]

I was in the Chicago area last week, staying in a hotel in Oak Brook, 20 miles or so west of the Loop. With a Silver Sensor antenna deep inside the hotel room and a Magnavox DVD recorder with ATSC tuner, I had no trouble seeing any of the Sears/Hancock DTVs with the exception of WBBM-DT. (I tried WBBM-DT with rabbit ears, too, but still no decode.) I was also able to receive WYIN-DT with the Silver Sensor and careful aiming. I did not get any of the low-power DTs, but I didn't expect to. Lots to see in Chicago...wish I had MeTV and MeToo back home!

It's probably the buildings, you got to remember Chicago is one tall building after another. Oak Brook is a nice flat level suburb

 

[Tom Wells]

I live on the north side of Chicago 7 miles NNW of downtown, 10 miles due east of Ohare airport, under a dual E-W runway approach.
We get some massive airplane multipathing on the OTA TV signal, but the attic antenna gives us easily over 20 stations,
in varying quality. The antenna has 4 wires and an electrical phasing switch at the TV end. This is almost a rotor
for such strong signals. I can't wait to see what happens when we hook a converter box up to this thing.
Or when we buy a new TV.

We don't have time enough to buy TV and then have to feel obligated to get our money's worth.
What's free will be fine.

I know we ned to buy a flatscreen like now , as Shaggy would say.
I have always gotten a headache from the horizontal sweep noise on CRT TVs, and flatscreens are silent or nearly so.

Isn't the LCD tech less radio noisy than the plasma?

Are any of them available with old fashioned analog inputs, I'd like to retain VCR capabilty for a while yet.....

 

[pqgeorge]

Let's take a look on my set up. I live in Whitman, MA, about 25 miles from the major transmitters in the Boston market. I am a regular cable subscriber, but got the coupons anyway. My set up includes a Digital Stream DTV box and a Insignia DTV box. I find the Digital Stream box has better "ears" than the Insignia unit. The antenna system is a deep fringe UHF Yagi, located at about 20' above the ground and (for the present time) I use RG-6 cable fed into an 18 db. Radio Shack broadband amplifier. So far, these are my results....

2.1- WGBH main (UHF 19)
2.2- WGBH HD

4.1- WBZ-HD (UHF 30)

5.1- WCVB-HD (UHF 20)

6.1- WLNE-DT (UHF 49, weak)
6.2- WLNE-NW

7.1- WHDH-DT (UHF 42)
7.2- WHDH Weather Plus

10.1- WJAR-DT (UHF 51, weak)
10.2- WJAR Weather Plus

12.1- WPRI-DT (VHF 13)

25.1- WFXT-DT (UHF 31)

27.1- WUNI-DT (UHF 29)

28.1- WLWC-DT (UHF 22)

36.1- WSBE-DT (UHF 21, weak)
36.2- WSBE-DT2

38.1- WSBK-DT (UHF 39)

44.1- WGBX-DT (UHF 43)
44.2- WGBX World
44.3- WGBX Create
44.4- WGBX Kids

56.1- WLVI-DT (UHF 41)

64.1- WNAC-DT (UHF 54)

66.1- WUTF-DT (UHF 23)

68.1- WBPX-DT (UHF 32)
68.2- WBPX qubo
68.3- WBPX ION Life
68.4- WBPX Worship
same on WPXQ 69.1-69.4 (UHF 17, weak)

Hopefully, the DT's will come to full-power, especially WJAR for their 10.3 planning to beginning to air soon as RTN.

 

[fybush]

I was in the Chicago area last week, staying in a hotel in Oak Brook, 20 miles or so west of the Loop. With a Silver Sensor antenna deep inside the hotel room and a Magnavox DVD recorder with ATSC tuner, I had no trouble seeing any of the Sears/Hancock DTVs with the exception of WBBM-DT. (I tried WBBM-DT with rabbit ears, too, but still no decode.) I was also able to receive WYIN-DT with the Silver Sensor and careful aiming. I did not get any of the low-power DTs, but I didn't expect to. Lots to see in Chicago...wish I had MeTV and MeToo back home!

It's probably the buildings, you got to remember Chicago is one tall building after another. Oak Brook is a nice flat level suburb

That's one piece of it (though the 8VSB modulation scheme is actually supposed to thrive on the kind of multipath generated by deep urban canyons), but I think the more crucial point, as someone else was trying to make upthread, is that I was using an antenna (the Silver Sensor) designed for the UHF signals that make up most of Chicago's DTVs. I paid less than $20 for mine, including shipping, on the web. Try one.